


vibrations

by takeourpure



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Deaf AU, Deaf Eddie, M/M, The Losers Club, musician eddie, vibrations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-04-17 19:20:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14195955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takeourpure/pseuds/takeourpure
Summary: a silent boy's only way to keep his sanity is through the vibrations that set his body alight.





	vibrations

The constant ringing echoed in his ears as the small boy sat on the garage floor, his worn-out bass guitar pressed firmly against his stomach. The cool concrete underneath him wasn’t providing much warmth for his already shivering frame, but he couldn’t bring himself to move. The frustration and anger that was building inside of him was becoming almost intolerable as he relentlessly plucked at its steel strings. The small amplifier that his friend Richie had bought him a couple years ago sat on full volume by his feet, sending both powerful memories and vibrations up through his legs and into his body.

Eddie Kaspbrak couldn’t hear anything. And he wasn’t sure how much more of it he could take.

But he hadn’t been born this way.

It was two days, seventeen hours and forty-three minutes before his fourteenth birthday that the accident occurred. The high impact collision of the pharmacy lamppost and the passenger side of his mother’s clean Honda Civic resulted in injuries that were far beyond irreversible. It was the severe concussion, fractured skull and moderate bruising to the brain that took away something that he could never get back, and almost a year later he still didn’t know how to forgive his mother.

He was mad at her when she called him Eddie-Bear in front of his friends. He was mad at her when she wouldn’t allow him to ride a bicycle until he turned thirteen in fear that he would fall off and break his neck. He was mad at her when he found out she was lying about his sicknesses and had been handing him placebos every day for thirteen years. But it wasn’t until that day that he truly realised what it was to be mad at her.

He couldn’t hear the impact of splashing water as he jumped off the cliff into the quarry anymore, or the sound of Ben and Beverly giggling as they sat sprawled out on the field together during recess. He couldn’t even hear the crash of cymbals echoing from Bill’s garage where Richie had set up his new drum kit – no matter how hard he slammed his drumsticks against them.

But despite being deaf no one appreciated music as much as he did, because he heard it differently to everybody else. Through the vibrations that set his body alight. The way his cheeks blushed a bright shade of crimson as he pressed his back up against the bass drum that he’d reluctantly begged Richie to play for him, just to feel the beat in his bones. It wouldn’t be an uncommon occurrence for him to shyly interrupt a conversation the losers were having and ask Beverly if she could sing something for him. Just so he could close his eyes and touch his fingertips to her throat as she nervously adlibbed a melody, and feel the currents of sound travel through his fingers and into his bloodstream. The sight would almost be too much to bear for the glasses-wearing trash mouth, who for once was rendered silent in seeing the small boy hurting in a way that he couldn’t fix.

Eddie wanted to be able to hear the chirping and singing of the birds that Stanley pointed at as they sat in the large open fields together, and hear his laugh as Eddie attempted to teach him various swear words and insults in sign language.

He wanted to be able to hear the improvement in Bill’s dialogue. Mike had been frequently telling him that the speech therapy his Mother suggested he took was working, and it only broke Eddie more knowing that he’d never hear the words that Bill would say confidently and loudly to the bullies that once mocked his stutter.

But most importantly he wanted to hear Richie.

The curse words and insults that once poured out of his chapped lips in an endless stream were now silent to him. Ben would always lightly shove his shoulder and joke saying that at least it was a good thing he didn’t have to listen to Richie’s shit anymore. But as the rest of the losers’ mouths opened in laughter, Richie glanced at him with an unrecognisable emotion on his face, and Eddie couldn’t help but regret every single moment he ever told Richie to “shut up,” or to “stop talking.” For now, he would much rather hear an abundance of dirty jokes about his mother’s underwear than nothing at all.

As the harsh plucking and reckless slapping of the guitar strings intensified, the blisters on the tips of his fingers were growing more painful. But Eddie didn’t care anymore. His screaming thoughts and the vibrations that were growing under his feet were the only things keeping him sane; and everything else that he ever found happiness in was blinded by his pure frustration of his disability.

He was sick of having to ask Stanley – the one who had the firmest grasp on ASL – what the fuck everyone was talking about in the conversation when they were moving their mouths faster than they could translate for him.

He was sick of having to ignore the constant stares he received as he walked into school each day. Bill would insist that no one really paid much attention to him, but by the way Bill and Richie would tense up as they walked with him past the groups of judgemental teenagers only secured the knowledge that someone was yelling insults at him that would be silent forever.

Tears were prickling his eyes as his hands were almost hitting against the instrument, furthering the intensity of the sound waves. But he wanted them stronger. He wanted to not only feel them, but to hear them. He wanted to hear them with his whole body, louder and louder and louder.

But abruptly, everything seemed to still when the large roller door of the garage opened and a rather shaken Richie appeared in the doorway. The dim light of the moon that glowed from behind him signalled that he’d been frozen in his thoughts for longer than he thought. 'Are you okay?' Richie signed in a jumbled mess as he eyed the teenage boy curled up around the string instrument on the floor, who was looking back up at him with pain glazed in his eyes.

'Yeah,' Eddie responded with a curled motion of his hand, biting down on his lip as his tears ran down his face like blood from an open wound. He glanced up at the curly haired boy he would never be able to hear again, and lifted his hand with a shuddering breath.

'I’m fine.'

**Author's Note:**

> hello friends, please feel free to check out my tumblr, (takeourpure) for more of my writing. feel free to come talk to me! i love hearing other peoples opinions on stories and making friends.   
> let me know how you felt about this one shot :)


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